Thanks, Steve

It seems fitting, with the recent passing of Steve Jobs, for me to extend to him a posthumous “thank you.” Were he still here, he would not understand this. He and I never met, and to the best of my knowledge he was never aware of my business efforts. Yet, in a very real way, he is responsible for my lifetime of CAM with Gibbs and Associates.

           

In my early years (I am an old guy), I was exposed to the beginning of NC machining while I worked as a mechanical engineer and tried to earn a degree in Computer Science. I thought there were great things in store for computers even though the computers of the 1970s were big things programmed with punched-paper cards.

 

I was hired to develop CAM software in 1978. However, that educational experience ended in 1982 when my parent company, a machine tool dealer, went bankrupt due to the defense manufacturing recession in California. Unemployment wasn’t much fun, so I became a self-employed contract NC programmer. I used an early CAM system, which ran on a DEC mini computer. A monitor in those days was a display of 24 rows, 80 characters each. I had a pen plotter for graphics. (This was before the IBM PC and DOS.) I decided that there was good, honest money in programming parts for people and that I was done with the CAM software business because it hadn’t ended well for me.

 

This all changed in July of 1984 when a friend told me I had to find an Apple store and see this new thing called a Macintosh. I asked, “Whatever for? The Apple II and Apple III are no big thing.”

 

He said, “Trust me. Go look at the Macintosh.”

 

So I did, and I fell in love at first sight. I had never seen a mouse before. I had never seen graphics on a monitor like this before, or ever seen a graphic user interface. The store had to ask me to leave after I had been playing with it for an hour or so. And damn! They were expensive. But I had a plan. I knew about OEM and VAR deals. I got five friends who all wanted Macs to chip in. I called Apple and spun a tale about wanting to develop CAM software on the Mac—something I could talk about. I wasn’t being especially honest with them because I had no intention of actually doing this, but their VAR program let me buy five Macs at half price. I said, “Great! Where do I send the check?”

 

Then, they explained that I would need to be surveyed by an Apple rep at “my offices.” What offices? I rented room for a desk in a small industrial space shared with a small, four-man software company and an accountant. The other renters offered to help, and for one day they acted as my employees. The rep showed up, thought I was okay, and we filled in the paper work. We got to “company name,” and I didn’t have one. Not to be deterred, he suggested “Gibbs and Associates,” and completed the form. And I got the computers.

 

I’m not sure when I changed my mind about making CAM software, but I knew the graphic interface would be so great for NC programming, I had to do it. And so, the tale became reality, and Gibbs and Associates started making CAM software.